The 10 best… matches of the 2014 international outdoor archery season

10) USA versus Russia, Antalya 2014: The USA compound women’s team were undefeated on the 2014 Archery World Cup circuit heading into Antalya. They remained unbeaten until the gold medal match – when an under-achieving Russia made a return to the finals field arena…

9) ELLISON (USA) versus OH (KOR), Lausanne 2014: Two-time Archery World Cup Champion heading into the 2014 season, Brady ELLISON had qualified for five straight World Cup Finals. In the first round of this season’s title event in Lausanne he drew Olympic Champion OH Jin Hyek.

The match was, predictably, close…

8) ELZINGA (NED) versus MUNOZ (COL), Medellin 2014: Peter ELZINGA, Dutch veteran of the international archery circuit and a multi-world record breaker, but never a World Cup stage winner. Standing in his way at Medellin 2014 was local Colombian Daniel Munoz – who had never made it past the second round before!

7) China versus Korea, Incheon 2014: At the Asian Games host nation Korea expected big things from its recurve squad. It didn’t see an upset of its men’s team coming when OH Jin Hyek, KU Bonchan and LEE Seungyun led China 4-2 in the semifinals.

China leveled up with a strong 59. (They’d shot a five in the first set.) The match went to a tiebreaker.

Both teams shot 9-10-9, 28. The crowd was in stunned silence as officials announced that China’s 10 was closer to the middle.

6) KAHLLUND (GER) versus KU (KOR), Antalya 2014: Germany’s Florian KAHLLUND broke his arrow rest in the third set of his recurve men’s gold medal match with KU Bonchan at the Antalya World Cup stage. Florian picked up his spare but Bonchan forced a shoot-off. Aiming in the blue, Florian shot one-arrow against Ku for the win…

5) LOPEZ (COL) versus COSKUN (TUR), Wroclaw 2014: Colombian world-record holder over the 15-arrow match Sara LOPEZ made the compound women’s gold finals at Shanghai – the first stage of the season – and Wroclaw – the fourth and last.

In Shanghai, disaster struck: her equipment failed and she missed. In Wroclaw… shock finalist Cansu COSKUN from Turkey upped her game.

4) LEE (KOR) versus DALMEIDA (BRA), Nanjing 2014: Rookie international Korean recurve archer LEE Woo Seok shot a new world record during the ranking round at the Youth Olympic Games.

Two days late, he drilled 12 out of his 15 arrows into the 10 in a five-set final against Brazilian rising star Marcus DALMEIDA.

WATCH on the official YouTube Channel of the Olympic Games.

3) KUMARI (IND) versus SEGINA (RUS), Wroclaw 2014: Deepika KUMARI had won three Archery World Cup Final silvers in a row. But in 2014, her form unraveled. She failed to make the Indian team at the start of the year and couldn’t seem to shoot well when she did travel abroad…

…until Wroclaw.

When she found her form one again. The individual bronze medal final she shot against Tatiana SEGINA was loaded because the Russian needed to win to qualify for the Lausanne 2014 Archery World Cup Final at the time.

2) DELOCHE (FRA) versus PEINEAU (FRA), Shanghai 2014: World number one PJ DELOCHE and reigning Indoor Archery World Cup Champion Sebastien PEINEAU went head-to-head in an all-France clash for individual compound men’s gold at the first Archery World Cup stage of the 2014 season.

1) India versus Korea, Medellin 2014: BORO, DAS and SWURO – touted in the Indian media leading up to Medellin 2014 as the recurve men’s “B Team” – fell behind Korea quickly in the final. Then they rallied – and shot a tight back half to square the match at 4 set points apiece…

Agree or disagree? Tweet @worldarchery and let us know what you think the best match of the 2014 archery season was. 

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